Project description:The goal of this study is to analyze the blood from patients with metastatic breast cancer to examine the genome of circulating tumor cells that initiate metastatic tumors.
Project description:The goal of this study is to analyze the blood from patients with metastatic breast cancer to examine the genome of circulating tumor cells that initate metastatic tumors.
Project description:We analyzed gene expression in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from breast cancer patients, patients with benign breast abnormalities, healthy cancer-free individuals as well as patients with other types of cancer (gastrointestinal and brain cancers).
Project description:We analyzed gene expression in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from breast cancer patients, patients with benign breast abnormalities, healthy cancer-free individuals as well as patients with other types of cancer (gastrointestinal and brain cancers). Peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) samples were collected from women with a suspect initial mammogram prior to undergoing a diagnostic biopsy procedure to determine whether the detected abnormality was benign or malignant. In total, we collected blood from 57 women with a diagnosis of breast cancer and 37 with a benign diagnosis. We also collected blood from 31 women with normal initial mammograms as negative controls and 15 breast cancer patients following surgery. All breast cancer patient samples were collected at the Duke University Medical Center (DUMC) under an institutional review board (IRB)-approved protocol (Duke eIRB#12025) after obtaining informed consent and were provided by Dr. Jeffrey Marks. PBMC samples from patients with various gastrointestinal cancers (n=15) were colelcted and stored at DUMC under IRB-approved protocols (Duke eIRB#12010 and 12025) and were provided by Dr. Jeffrey Marks. Peripheral blood leukocyte samples from patients with brain tumors (n=7) were provided by Dr. John Sampson and were collected by leukapheresis under Duke eIRB#00003877 and #00009403.
Project description:Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) are highly immunosuppressive myeloid cells, which increase in cancer patients. The molecular mechanism behind their generation and function is unclear. Whereas granulocytic-MDSCs correlate with poor overall survival in breast cancer, the presence and relevance of monocytic-MDSCs (Mo-MDSCs) is unknown. Here we report for the first time an enrichment of functional blood Mo-MDSCs in breast cancer patients before they acquire a typical Mo-MDSC surface phenotype. A clear population of Mo-MDSCs with the typical cell surface phenotype (CD14+HLA-DRlow/-Co-receptorlow/-) increased significantly first during disease progression and correlated to metastasis to lymph nodes and visceral organs. Furthermore, monocytes, comprising the Mo-MDSC population, from patients with metastatic breast cancer resemble the reprogrammed immunosuppressive monocytes in patients with severe infections, both by their surface and functional phenotype but also at their molecular gene expression profile. Our data suggest that monitoring the Mo-MDSC levels in breast cancer patients may represent a novel and simple biomarker for assessing disease progression. Peripheral blood monocytes were isolated using magnetic cell sorting from 4 patients with metastatic breast cancer, 3 healthy controls, 3 patients with sepsis and 3 patients with active tuberculosis were immediately frozen at -80C in TRIZOL.
Project description:Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in women. The majority of these deaths are due to disease metastasis, in which cancer cells disseminate to multiple organs and disrupt vital physi-ological functions. It is widely accepted that breast cancer cells secrete extracellular vesicles (EVs), which contain dynamic molecular cargo that act as versatile mediators of intercellular communication. Therefore, EVs secreted by breast cancer cells could be involved in the development of metastatic disease and resistance to treatment. Moreover, changes in EV cargo could reflect the effects of therapy on their parent tumor cells. The aim of this feasibility study was to quantitatively profile the proteomes of EVs isolated from blood samples taken from treatment sensitive and resistant metastatic breast cancer patients to identify proteins associated with responses. Three serial blood samples were collected from three patients with metastatic breast cancer receiving systemic therapy including a responder, a non-responder, and a mixed-responder. EVs were isolated from plasma using size exclusion chromatography and their protein cargo was prepared for tandem mass tag (TMT)-labelling and quantitative analyses using two-dimensional high-performance liquid chromatography followed by tandem mass spectrometry. After filtering, we quantitatively identified 286 proteins with high confidence using a q value of 0.05. Of these, 149 were classified as EV associated candidate proteins and 137 as classical, high abundant plasma proteins. After comparing EV protein abundance between the responder and non-responder, we identified 35 proteins with unique deregulated abundance patterns that was conserved at multiple time points. We propose that this proof-of-concept approach can be used to identify proteins which have potential as predictors of metastatic breast cancer response to treatment.
Project description:We profiled primary breast cancer, nodal and liver metastatic tumours from three patients. At the time of initial diagnosis, all three patients presented with luminal breast cancer with adjacent nodal metastasis. They all received 5 years of enodrine therapy and all subsequently developed liver metastasis. Examination of mRNA differences between primary, nodal and metastatic tumour samples.